Between March and May 2018, INTERPOL coordinated operations in 36 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America, with the aim of shutting down factories and cutting off supply chains behind a wide range of counterfeit goods and the organised crime networks directing them. The operations yielded global seizures worth USD 25 million.…
Under the framework of the projects CRIMJUST and “Response to Drugs and Related Organized Crime in Nigeria”, UNODC conducted, on 12 July 2018, the first replication workshop on “Drug identification with handheld electronic field testing devices” in Lagos, Nigeria. It was the first training in West Africa to introduce the use of the testing devices,…
The United Kingdom Border Force Unit has handed over two operational vans and equipment valued at $120,000 Dollars to the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) to boost Ghana’s fight against drug trafficking. Mozambique has become a significant heroin transit centre. Estimations suggest 40 tonnes or more per year are traded from Mozambique, making it a major…
CRIMJUST and the UNODC Global Programme on Cybercrime launched a Training Workshop on Cybercrime to improve the participants’ technical skills on digital evidence gathering and ensure an effective response to challenges arising from drug trafficking. The course took place in Panama from 25 to 26 June 2018. Twenty-six participants, officers from the Public Prosecution Office…
The Joint Airport Interdiction Task Force (JAITF) at Niamey Diori Hamani International Airport in Niger was established in 2014 as part of AIRCOP. Since then, it has seized more than 8 kg of cocaine, 3 kg of methamphetamine, 120 kg of gold, 2 kg of ammunition, 114 stolen or fraudulent identification documents and more than…
Recreational marijuana use will soon be legal in Canada after the Senate passed a “historic” bill on 19 June with a vote of 52-29. Canada is only the second country in the world — and the first G7 nation — to implement legislation to permit a nationwide marijuana market. Fourteen cocaine-soaked shirts styled like the…
Conservative candidate Ivan Duque has won Colombia’s presidential runoff election on 17 June 2018. Duque’s presidential agenda included next to the peace deal also narco-trafficking. Colombia’s production of cocaine has increased, and armed groups are fighting each other for control of routes once controlled by FARC. The cocaine kingpin, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “La…
On 8 June 2018, the future Joint Airport Interdiction Task Force (JAITF) at Maputo International Airport (Mozambique) concluded its initial training provided by Brazilian Federal Police and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) experts. The training was the first step towards the establishment of the JAITF. Additional training and mentoring activities will be…
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean (UNODC ROPAN) has supported the National Aeronaval Service (SENAN) of Panama under the framework of the CRIMJUST project, in adopting a mandatory ethics training to prevent corruption on 28 May 2018. The training titled, “Basic Course on Ethics…
The lunchtime conference titled “EU trans-regional responses to drug trafficking and organised crime” took place on 17 May 2018 organised in the margins of the fourth Cocaine Route Programme (CRP) Steering Committee. The event offered a comprehensive view on the combined efforts of different EU programmes in a concerted response of the EU to…
